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Samsung Employees Conspired To Sell AMOLED Tech; 11 Arrested
zacharye writes with this snippet from BGR: "Nearly a dozen suspects have been arrested and charged with crimes related to the theft and sale of AMOLED display technology under development at Samsung. Yonhap News Agency on Thursday reported that 11 suspects either currently or formerly employed by Samsung Mobile Display have been arrested. One 46-year-old researcher at Samsung is believed to have accepted a payment of nearly $170,000 from an unnamed 'local rival firm' in exchange for trade secrets pertaining to proprietary Samsung technology used in the company's AMOLED panels..."
Sure of it.
Their they're doing there hair.
Any chance the first letter of the rival's name is L and the second letter is G? I didn't know they were that desperate for organic LED tech.
Too bad that they fail. Another AMOLED manufacturer is a must !
Consider the readership demographic: either you already know what AMOLED is (it is fairly well known in mobile tech circles), or you are sufficiently cognizant to look it up yourself.
I'm no fan of apple, but your barking up the wrong tree. Apple doesn't use AMOLED screens because AMOLED screens don't offer the high resolution that apple wants. Samsung does manufacture the apple 'retina' displays but they are not based on AMOLED technology. No need to call them in as the bad guy here.
"According to authorities, the man unsuccessfully attempted to sell the information to a Chinese display manufacturer at that time."
Call me biased or whatever, but I already knew the word Chinese was gonna be in there before I even read the story.
I haven't the time to look up every acronym and backronym on the entire internet. I strongly suspect very few people do. As a basic standard any news reporter should clarify at a minimum the more eldritch terms. And this isn't being particularly picky, it is a literal journalistic standard.
I'm just lolling at the "redundant" downmod from an emotionally wounded blogger, myself.
I haven't the time to look up every acronym and backronym on the entire internet. I strongly suspect very few people do.
Then I would recommend the same thing I do to people in meatspace who blather on about topics they know nothing about: tell them to shut their pie-holes and learn something.
As a basic standard any news reporter should clarify at a minimum the more eldritch terms. And this isn't being particularly picky, it is a literal journalistic standard.
This is 1000% correct; I myself get rather pissed when I'm reading an article and they refer to a person by their surname without spelling out the whole thing first...
Lowther? What the fuck is a Lowther????
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Consumers benefit the most if all of a sudden there are many competitors in this market even if the original development is stolen.
You can't handle the truth.
Then I would recommend the same thing I do to people in meatspace who blather on about topics they know nothing about: tell them to shut their pie-holes and learn something.
If you were simultaneously representing yourself as a news outlet, I'd say you were therefore a piss poor news outlet. :D Honestly, you have people whining about verbatim copy pasta newsfeeds on here all the time, someone points out the same thing and its bad cos blog.
You would have a point of AMOLED was an eldritch term. It's not.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
only pirates are so intent on changing the language
ahhhhh, the ironing is delicious. Thanks, AC!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Also means it's time to invest into Samsung as the competition is placing bounties on their tech.
True. However, if you're the /. crowd, you'd know it was something related to display technology already. Hell, the public knows it's something about display technology because the term AMOLED has been plastered all over the place. You can hardly go a day without someone saying something like "Super AMOLED" this and "AMOLED+" that.
Samsung plasters it everywhere since it seems all their phones use it. And it appears a large number of Android phones have an AMOLED screen as well.
Two years ago, you'd be correct. These days, it's a technology and used in marketing materials everywhere. (Hell, Samsung has Super AMOLED, Super AMOLED+ (RGB instead of Pentile), Super AMOLED HD, ... blah blah blah).
QED
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
No Samsung supplies screens: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-13/samsung-supplies-apple-with-touch-screen-for-new-ipad.html
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Hell, the public knows it's something about display technology because the term AMOLED has been plastered all over the place.
Bullshit.
That is all.
The time taken to post the complaint exceeds the time spent to do this
I figured it was some kind of Organic LED but didn't really care what the AM part meant. It shows pictures == I'm happy.
Aside - Why do DVDs look like crap on LED flat panels, but greats on my CRT? I've never been able to figure that out. Maybe it's poor scaling in the LED.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
While you're there could you google "basic journalistic standards if you are purporting to be reporting news, and presumably trying to make money in said endeavour".
I'll never visit that site again, and I'd be surprised if many others did either. The bloglords flexing their sarcasm on /. isn't really much of a persuader either.
Thanks for posting. Sorry you got modded down.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Is that a way to justify theft?
Some people also benefit from armored money trucks spilling their cargo over a highway.
But it raises the cost of doing business, and ultimately society pays a price for that.
Hmmm... like the Nichicon electrolytic capacitor theft? Exploding capacitors for a decade. The consumer doesn't always win.
If you were simultaneously representing yourself as a news outlet, I'd say you were therefore a piss poor news outlet. :D
So.. Fox? Or perhaps MSNBC? I won't bother mentioning CNN, as they're more of a playground than a news organization these days (whose day is it to play with the "Magic Wall?")
Honestly, you have people whining about verbatim copy pasta newsfeeds on here all the time, someone points out the same thing and its bad cos blog.
I bitch, but I have to admit the summaries here are still far more grammatically and factually correct than, say, every article on Yahoo. I hate Yahoo News for their piss-poor reporting and total lack of proofreading... yet I keep going back...
it's positively masochistic...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
So.. Fox? Or perhaps MSNBC? I won't bother mentioning CNN, as they're more of a playground than a news organization these days (whose day is it to play with the "Magic Wall?")
Oh yeah I'll definetely be going back to that website for all my news needs. After all, its better than Fox. Seriously, you aren't striking a blow for the popularity of anyone here.
I did, champ. And then I came back and posted it to slashdot for all to admire, thus saving others the ongoing bother of having to search for it themselves, a courtesy I'd expect in advance from any site claiming to present the news to me. And who knows how many future shoddy performances I've prevented merely by complaining, since as everyone is aware, you don't improve things unless you open your mouth.
Got it?
Great.
I haven't the time to look up every acronym and backronym on the entire internet.
According to this quick search "AMOLED" has been mentioned 4910 times on this site. I'd say this term has moved into the realm of assumed knowledge, and that you've moved into the realm of assumed stupidity.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds -- Albert Einstein
You assume that stolen tech will introduce more competition, which will drive the prices down and increase selection for consumers.
I will assume that stolen tech will result in lawsuits, possibly shutdown of the company that was "stealing" and all the resulting costs passed over to the consumer.
Have a nice day.
Actually, Apple doesn't use AMOLED because Samsung wouldn't supply them with enough screens for the iPhone, because they were tied up in Samsung's own smart phone offerings.
While I'll agree with you that it's ridiculous to be expected to know every acronym that is currently in use, you aren't being required to look up every single one. The article mentions ONE specific acronym.
I'm assuming that since you are posting to /., you probably have internet access. Even on a slow connection, it should take less time to pull up a new tab, type in "www.google.com," type in "AMOLED," and click search, than to make multiple comments here on /.. Or, if you have Firefox, you can simply highlight any word, right click, then click "Search Google."
Define "well". 170 grand cash, tax free, is like 4 -5 years salary for a PhD level researcher in south korea (who are about 20-30% lower paid than their US counterparts on a nominal, if not PPP basis).
Even by US standards 170 grand is a lot up front. Remember that they're paying someone to steal it, not paying someone to develop it. It could have been a 500 person job to develop the technology, they're just paying someone who has admin access on the files to make a copy, not even necessarily senior employees.
You would think, with 11 arrests it was a bigger job than one person, but still, 10 people who each work with 50 others can steal a LOT of valuable information.
Well, one thing is for sure, I'm impressed with the speed at which google crawls slashdot.
As for the exact function/definition of AMOLED, do you really need it to know the basic gist of the story (employees of Samsung were nabbed trying to sell trade secrets for display technology). If the article were about a new AMOLED screen, it might be more useful, but the story in this case was more about the bust than the actual tech.
AMOLED SECRETS STOLEN! wtf is an amoled, probably some sort of oled, lets look that up and see whats what. Oh right, well I'll just post that on slash with a tut tut for the poor journalism that wasted my time searching for it. Cue bloggers up in arms over disparagement of blogs, cue comments saying it would have been easier to just look it up than to complain about it missing the behaviour modification benefits of complaints in terms of those offering a service, and we are done.
Any questions.
It is, after all, news media's job to include an elementary education in each news broadcast so that you can understand it.
Sadly not, don't forget that all those blown caps in the early 00s was due to corporate espionage, they stole only part of the formula and tried to "fill in the blank" and got it wrong, causing untold losses from prematurely blown boards.
Also what you are advocating is basically a form of "race to the bottom" which as we have seen really only gets you garbage. There is a reason why a PC I build for a customer lasts so long it gets passed down to several family members while that $300 Dell special gets shitcanned 3 weeks after the warranty is gone, and that is because of quality parts. I make sure i have the best parts, from solid caps to high quality fans, whereas the Dell uses the cheapest shit they can get their hands on.
If a company can't make any money from their tech because it'll be stolen they just won't invest in any R&D that costs any real money which gets you a race to the bottom where everyone is making the same shit, just using shittier and shittier parts. See all the cheap ass Android tablets for an example and i'm sure most would agree that the vast majority are absolute garbage, totally designed for the dump, and are just a complete waste.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm in the grip of a rare spasm of nerd rage here, stand well back. The Slaine-like warp paroxysms have already resulted in me demolishing my F5 key in an attempt to slashdot slashdot singlehanded. Roll me round in snow quick for gods' sake!
Consumers might benefit in the short term, but in the long term as investors refuse to risk their capital in high tech .. nobody will benefit. Also without an accumulation of capital (since nobody will be able to make a large profit margin due to competition), there won't be anyone with the capital to fund new research.
Apple doesn't use AMOLED screens because AMOLED screens don't offer the high resolution that apple wants.
It used to be true, but I'm not so sure now. Galaxy Nexus has a 720p AMOLED screen - but that's PenTile. If you count subpixels rather than pixels, though, it's actually exactly the same pixel count as iPhone 4. Granted, physical resolution is still lower - iPhone screen is 3.5", Galaxy Nexus is 4.5". Still, that's about 250 DPI. Given that they are talking about some ongoing developments here, I wouldn't be surprised if Samsung is actually planning to roll out "retina" (300+ DPI) OLED displays soon.
OLED doesn't have anything in common with "LED" TVs. The latter refer to the use of LED for backlight, but screen itself is still the usual TFT LCD, and picture quality is by and large the same.
In OLED, individual pixels are organic LEDs, and there's no backlight (which is why its black is really black).
Too bad that they fail. Another AMOLED manufacturer is a must !
Really? Your preferred way to get more of the stuff you want made is to encourage theft from the people who are risking giant piles of money to develop it in the first place? What are you, 8 years old?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Actually he is not ... Apple tried to the get AMOLEAD in the iPhone. And that's from someone working for Samsung in Korea.
"As a basic standard any news reporter should clarify at a minimum the more eldritch terms."
Nowadays, "eldritch" IS eldritch.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Governments have already done that with first to patent laws. Seriously what did you think would be the outcome of laws like that.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I went to a cellphone provider's webiste and looked at their phones. Like this one. Of which "AMOLED" is plastered on at least 6 phones.
It's a technology, and it's a marketing spec plastered all over the place. I just saw an ad for some Samsung Android phone, and it claimed a Super AMOLED screen. A radio ad for the Galaxy Nexus (heard of that phone? It came with Ice Cream Sandwich since day 1) praises its AMOLED HD screen.
The only way you might not know about it is if you lock yourself in the basement, never step outside (oh look, a billboard for an Android phone with AMOLED screen!), use any media like radio, TV, or step inside any store or mall (thus skipping all the cellphone displays), it's plastered everywhere I go.
Hell, the term is so popular, I bet some of the very same will mistakenly say the iPhone or iPad has an AMOLED screen.
Sure, they won't know what makes it special or advanced, but they know what it is.
"I haven't the time to look up every acronym and backronym on the entire internet"
Judging by your comment history, you're lying.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
See you're really new here.
The original purpose of this site was some guy's personal BLOG.
Ain't *SHIT* for journalistic standards in a blog format, and that same format EXISTS TO THIS DAY.
7-digit UIDs, so brainless and late to the party, as always.
If you're this far behind in technology, you'll never get anywhere any time soon,
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"And then I came back and posted it to slashdot for all to admire"
All while avoiding your own vaunted 'basic journalistic integrity' and never posting a detailed explanation in the comments, all the while ranting. So much for your 'integrity.'
Please, child. Detach yourself from mummy's PC, reattach to her tit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
DVDs look like crap on LCD vs CRT because most are recorded in an interlaced format. LCD isn't an interlaced display device, CRTs are.
You need to deinterlace the image.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It sucks to be called out on being wrong? That's not a rhetorical question, BTW. The only difference between me and you is not necessarily amount of knowledge, but simply the fact I don't feel compelled to act like an asshat everytime I say something that is not quite correct.
a) there is nothing incorrect in anything I said and b) its usually people who are badly wrong, such as yourself, who then start getting all personal when they have noplace else to run.
And after doing that I might decide to you know post it on slashdot. Which I did. I know RTFA is somewhat frowned upon in these parts, but at least try to RTFC like a good lad.
Eh the wikipedia link and explanation are in the very first post there khyb, and it's your mummy's tit I'll be detaching from.
Slashdot was around before "blogs" gained any currency in the mainstream, and its a news feed with discussion forum attached, boyo. I guess you could call that a "Newsog" or something.
Your explanation didn't even come close to anything resembling journalism. Very short on detail.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"it's your mummy's tit I'll be detaching from"
Seems I was right to label you a child, with such unimaginative repetition spewing from your keyboard.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There is a reason why a PC I build for a customer lasts so long it gets passed down to several family members while that $300 Dell special gets shitcanned 3 weeks after the warranty is gone, and that is because of quality parts. I make sure i have the best parts, from solid caps to high quality fans, whereas the Dell uses the cheapest shit they can get their hands on.
How do you tell which parts are built to last? Most reviews I see on Newegg, Anandtech, etc. focus on initial quality, performance, and price:performance, not durability.
I built a gaming PC in early 2007 with mid-range parts, like a motherboard with solid caps, and nothing has failed so far (using it now). But beyond that, I'd have no idea how to build a durable computer. What's your secret?
A superamoled screen doesn't have the retina's resolution, but it looks much, much better on non-text viewing. Pure contrast and saturation of colors vs. text and higher-res applications. It ends up being a tossup.
Wow! That's more info than I could ask for. I just checked and my 2007 pc has sleeve bearing fans - no wonder it is so loud now. I'm confused about your assessment of ASRock - you say they OC their motherboards by default? What does that mean, exactly?
Also, do you have a website or anything set up for your pc building business? I may want to refer friends/acquaintances to you if they want a pc built and I'm too busy/lazy to do it for them.
Cry more troll, http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=hilton.co.uk
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?